“Léonie,” I said, looking at her seriously, “pray forgive me, but you do not intend to tell me the truth. You were tired of it years ago, when the Prince was alive.”
“That was so,” she answered, with a glance of triumph; “and I went home to my father and shut myself up at Wchinitz.”
“But you must have had some stronger motive in burying yourself again as you have recently done. You did not write to a soul, and no one knew where you were. You simply dropped out; and you had some reason for doing so, otherwise you would have told the truth to your most intimate friends.”
“You are annoyed that I should have left you without a word—eh?” she asked. “Well, I will apologise now.”
“No apology is necessary,” I answered. “It is only because we are such good friends that I venture to speak thus. I feel confident that you have sustained some great sorrow. You are, somehow, not the same as you were in Paris two years ago; now, tell me—”
“Ah! Do not talk of it!” she cried huskily, rising to her feet. “Let us drop the subject. Promise me, Gerald, not to mention it again, for I confess to you that it is too painful—much too painful. I promised you a waltz. Come, let us dance.”
Thus bidden, I rose, and she, twisting her skirts deftly in her hand, leaned lightly upon my arm as I conducted her to the great ballroom. A very few moments later we glided together into the whirling, dazzling crowd.
“You will not speak of that again, Gerald?” she urged in a hoarse whisper, looking earnestly up to my face, as her head came near my shoulder. “Promise me.”
“If it is your wish, Léonie,” I responded, puzzled, “I will ask no further question.”